Hello fellow companions of Edain, Edain 4.5 is as hard as a new game, isnt it? we all are relearning how to play it, arent we? ^^
Well, as we all know Steelworks is the one building facility that boost isengard's economy to the top (yes, lumbermills are now devastating, but trees are easily burned
), getting this building is hard, but its benefits are enormous, now that it has already been buffed, nevertheless, as soon as you get all the technologies, this amazing building becomes nearly forgotten by the player!
If we think about the concept of this structure, its a melting-forging factory, where there maybe great forges, and heat, alot of heat. This is said in the books:
Shafts were driven deep into the ground; their upper ends were covered by low mounds and domes of stone, so that in the moonlight the Ring of Isengard looked like a graveyard of unquiet dead. For the ground trembled. The shafts ran down by many slopes and spiral stairs to caverns far under; there Saruman had treasuries, store-houses, armouries, smithies, and great furnaces.
The point here is that if we have this great concept of a forge far greater that of the arsenal, couldnt it be use also as the place where Saruman forged its ring?
There is importance in The Lord of the Rings about all rings of power, Greater, lesser and the One, that’s why Gandalf seems draw particular attention to Saruman's ring. We know that Saruman had a great deal of knowledge regarding the rings of power. Is there anything in Middle-earth lore that indicates if there was anything extraordinary about this ring? YES, it is!
Remember what Tolkien said:
The real war does not resemble the legendary war in its process or its conclusion. If it had inspired or directed the development of the legend, then certainly the Ring would have been seized and used against Sauron; he would not have been annihilated but enslaved, and Barad-Dûr would not have been destroyed but occupied. Saruman, failing to get possession of the Ring, would in the confusion and treacheries of the time have found in Mordor the missing links in his own researches into Ring-lore, and before long he would have made a Great Ring of his own with which to challenge the self-styled Ruler of Middle-earth. In that conflict both sides would have held hobbits in hatred and contempt: they would not long have survived even as slaves.
We now definitely know that Saruman's ring was not a Great Ring but that Saruman had been researching rings, for it was his personal providence as Head of the Istari, and also he well knew that Rings of Power are at the heart of all Sauron’s schemes for dominion, and to uncover its very secrets was to uncover Sauron’s fall, so it should be reasonable to assume that the ring is of Saruman's making. It is never revealed what powers it may or may not have - Saruman definitely ascribed some potency to the ring (otherwise why call attention to it), and why Gandalf expose it at the council of Elrond?
Saruman was also considered the Lore-master about the history of the The Rings of Power (one reason Gandalf visited Saruman in the first place), so I wonder if Saruman knew where the Elven rings were being kept and was jealous of Gandalf, having Narya.
In the end, isnt all about Rings? ^^
Greetings, dear friends!